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S U M M E R D I R E C T I O N

EAST, WEST – HORSENS IS THE BEST

More than 250 international

students decided to spend their

summer holidays this year in

Horsens. And they didn’t come to

Denmark as tourists – they came

mostly to learn and enjoy

summer time as participants of

VIA Summer School organized by

VIA University College in Horsens.

“We are sitting in a boat much tilted to the one side, that left edge is almost touching the surface of

water. The sun is shining, the wind is quite strong, so we have perfect weather for sailing today.

Everyone is excited and at the same time a bit scared,

because we are sailing for the first time. But there are 2

experienced skippers with us, everything is under control.

Sport is the best way to relax after a hardworking day at

school”, this is what Dominik from Germany wrote on

Facebook at his second day of attending a summer course.

He, like the rest here, came to Horsens to experience

something completely new in their lives. On the one hand,

they have the opportunity every day to study an interesting

topic, often related to their education. On the other hand,

summer studies are mixed together with fun, joy, and

being with people from different countries. That’s the best

opportunity to spend the summer time in a useful way,

learn something new, make friends from all over Europe,

and enjoy the summer period.

WHAT IS VIA SUMMER SCHOOL?

Summer education is the best chance for students to gain 5 ECTS points in a relatively short time.

Several universities in Europe offer some courses during the summer holidays. One of these schools

is VIA University College (VIA UC) in Horsens, Denmark. It has already been 3 years since VIA UC

started to run summer courses. “In the beginning, we only provided 1 course to check if something

like Summer School would be attractive to students at

all“, said Jens Cramer, Head of the ICT Engineering

Department at VIA UC, also initiator of Summer School

at VIA UC. “In fact, we didn’t expect that so many

students would be interested in coming to classes

every day during the holidays. But each year more and

more people are asking about the possibility to study

during the summer, so we are motivated to expand

the program offered by us“, added Jens.

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This summer, 9 different courses were conducted in Horsens during July and August. All courses are

mainly on Bachelor level, but in some cases they can also be relevant for Master students. Each

course lasts for 2 weeks and ends with a presentation. Attendance is compulsory every day in order

to pass the course. Moreover, the last day all students must show (individually or in group) what they

have achieved and learned during those 2 weeks. Official examination is provided only for those who

wish to have a grade. The tuition is in English and courses are spanning from the ICT Engineering

programme to the Global Business Engineering and Marketing Management programme. “In the

future, we would like to expand the range

of summer courses even more, to be able

to provide courses also from other

programmes“, said Jens Cramer. “For

example, this year for the first time we

offered a course called “English &

Intercultural Communication”. This course

proved to be very popular, and we received

more than 90 applications. Consequently

in order to accept all of them we had to

create 3 classes, around 30 participants in

each, conducted over 2 different time

periods. And that’s only one course. Additionally, I have to mention here that 99 % of the

participants at that course were students from different countries. They came to Denmark only for

the VIA Summer School. And they were not disappointed because they even started to consider

further education in Denmark afterwards. We found 2 brilliant teachers for this course, Alexis

Walhovd and Vanessa Tavoletti, who are native English speakers. They were switching between

classes, so every student had the chance to follow lessons with both of them. In this way people

really improved their skills of speaking and making presentations in English. And because of the

international environment in the class it was quite easy to discuss many intercultural communication

topics and relate to them”.

IT’S NOT ONLY ABOUT STUDYING

“Everyone who came to Horsens

for summer education can

definitely confirm that Summer

School is not only studying, it’s es-

pecially the life after school too“,

said Rafał Robert Szymański. He is

the Coordinator of the VIA

Summer School, and has been for

2 years already. “Since we have

more and more international

students every year, we had to look a bit closer at social aspects. People come here from different

parts of Europe; they don’t know anyone in Horsens. Our goal is to help them to get to know one

another, but also to get to know our full-time students. Additionally, we are trying to show them the

best side of Denmark. Many events were organized by tutors, almost on a daily basis. For instance,

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we play different games on the beach, or we go all together to the Aqua Park, etc. If the weather is

nice, I try to organize a sailing activity on Horsens Fjord, or other sport activities”.

Summer School is conducted over 3 different time periods. In

each period, at least one big trip is organized for students to

visit interesting places in Jutland. “For me, the most exciting

was when we went to the Tropical Forest in Randers“,

confessed Andrzej from Poland. “Besides all those exotic

animals and plants which I saw there, I tried one of the craziest

things of my life. They arranged a special attraction for guests

where several bugs, which were still alive and of more than 5

cm in size, were placed on frying pan. They were fried in hot oil

for about 1 minute. Afterwards, guests could try to eat them to

find out that when you put salt on fried bugs it tastes almost

the same as chips. And I ate one bug too, even though my brain

was telling me not to do this. It was difficult especially when I

looked closer at it. Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I expected”.

“I noticed that there are still a lot of

young people who are afraid of studying

abroad, in a different country than their

home country“, added Rafał. “I think that

Summer School is one of the easiest ways

to try at least for 2 weeks how it is to

study in English in a completely different

place. Lots of people are shocked when

they arrive in Denmark, about differences

in prices and the way of living here. It is

probably because they are comparing it

all the time to what they are used to at home. But people often forget that Europe is differentiated

and almost every country is different. In the beginning, Denmark seems a bit expensive to students,

and that’s true. Therefore, we have our social budget to support most of the things which we offer

them. Our goal is not to pay for everything that they receive, but to offer them rational “student

prices” which are affordable for their

pockets. I am happy that this year, we were

able to offer students even some things,

which they didn’t have to pay directly for.

For example if we look at everyday

expenses, the only thing that they had to

cover was accommodation. At each tuition

day, we provided free lunch and breakfast.

And when it was necessary, we also

arranged free transportation between

school and the dormitory at least 3 times

per day.“

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SUMMER UNIVERSITY

In August, VIA University College in

Horsens became one of the biggest

centers of summer education in

Denmark. Besides VIA Summer

School, which had more than 150

participants in total, there were also

2 other initiatives taking place at

Campus Horsens. Danish Intensive

Language Course and the European

Summer School gathered more than 70 international participants in total.

Erasmus Intensive Language Course (EILC) has been organized by VIA UC for many years now. It is a

three-week intensive course about Danish language and culture, offered during the summer holidays

mostly for Erasmus exchange students. Such courses are offered in EU countries with less spoken

languages, such as Danish. Some basic knowledge of language and culture is quite important for a

good start-up in a new country. Moreover, it gives freshmen students a chance to adapt to the new

surroundings before the semester starts. Therefore every year, the course organized in Horsens is

very popular, even for those students who are

going to start their education in Denmark at a

different university than VIA UC.

European Summer School is a special kind of

cooperation between the partner universities,

organized this year by: VIA University College in

Horsens (Denmark), TEI University in Crete

(Greece), and University of Applied Sciences in

Dusseldorf (Germany). Each of those universities and also other partners provided either students or

teachers for a two-week course about “Telecommunication and Multimedia Technologies”. Every

year, the education takes place in different location. This year, it was held at the Vitus Bering

Innovation Park at Campus Horsens. Such summer organization at university level is very unique,

because teachers from different universities take part in the course in order to cover all topics about

telecommunication and multimedia. It is also

a great experience for everyone, teachers

and students, to try studying in English during

the summer time, where it is organized in a

different and more relaxed way. Everything is

sponsored by the Erasmus Intensive Program,

part of the EU funded Life Long Learning

Program.

MULTINATIONAL ACTION

All educational summer activities at Campus

Horsens were highly international this year.

Besides other organizations, only at VIA Summer School were more than 62 percent of all members

international students from other countries than Denmark. That means almost 100 international

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guests, where most of them have

visited Denmark for the first time,

and definitely not the last time.

“Summer School can be a

challenge for people who have

never lived and spent time in an

intercultural environment“, adds

Aśka from Poland. “If you don’t want to waste time at home, it's the best way to meet new,

interesting people from other parts of Europe, and sometimes even the world. I learned more here

than I expected, for example some intercultural similarities but also a lot of differences – things you

will never realize just by sitting at home. That’s a good feedback and experience which I would like to

repeat again”.

Planning your summer holidays is not as easy a decision

as it seems. Everything depends on what is your real

goal in life, and how brave you are when it comes to

accepting new ideas. Summer education could be an

interesting option, but remember that for everyone it

will be something completely different. “From my point

of view, Summer School was a really good way to finish

off my Erasmus trip“, admits Nicolas from France. “I

wasn’t sure what I should do after the end of the semester, when my Erasmus was over. But I

definitely didn’t want to go directly back home to France. Accidently, I ended up at VIA Summer

School, and this gave me such a great experience again, which I would never have expected. I think it

is because of the international atmosphere, and studying during the summer which is completely

different than during semester. Every day, you have the same subject, so you can focus more on it.

You drink coffee with your teacher in the morning,

you have lunch with other classmates where you

get to know each other better, and because of the

friendly and relaxed atmosphere you would rather

stay at school after classes to make some

homework, instead of just going home. In fact, we

meet every afternoon to do some activities

together. But if you want to chill out, you always

have room on your own”.

For Mario from Germany, the experience with VIA

Summer School was a bit different. “Besides all

the theory which I learned, like how to organize

and structure your reports, develop skills in giving

an oral presentation etc, I finally better

understood some of the aspects in communicating

with people from completely different cultures.

And finally, I had to wash laundry on my own –

that was a very useful skill “,laughs Mario.

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To be honest, having a lot of different

nationalities from Europe around you, and to

work with students of different ages and with

different background levels, all that could turn

out not to be fantastic “by rule”. But at VIA

Summer School it is, and someone like me can

personally confirm this“, says Jochen from

Germany. “Without any stereotypes and any

national prejudices, you will clearly realize here, how people are similar to one another, no matter

what part of the world they come from. And it was very nice that VIA UC represented by the VIA

Summer School Team did everything in order to make our stay become a great time and great

experience. Believe me; it is hard to find such well organized arrangements in any other places”.

GOODBYE OR RATHER SEE YOU SOON?

The last summer lessons are over now, and

most of the students from Summer School

are already back home. What they took back

with them is a great experience and a lot of

memories saved in plenty of pictures. Even

though VIA Summer School 2011 is already in

the past, its Facebook wall is updated every

day with a lot of fresh news from members

and great pictures which fulfill the official

group gallery. “It's been a long time we

haven't seen each other guys. Time to

change it! What about some meeting?“,

wrote Gabi from Poland on the Facebook

wall. Shortly afterwards, more than 40

comments appeared under this note. All

those young people who came to Horsens for a summer adventure want to meet again. Perhaps they

plan to meet in some other place than Horsens, but definitely with the same group of friends.

All those things show that VIA Summer School is not only a short summer activity for its participants.

In fact, it makes a significant influence and improvement on their lives, and it gathers people from

completely different places, who wouldn’t ever have had the possibility of getting to know each

other before. But now, a lot of them

have become friends and some even

became couples. How long all these

friendships are going to last – time

will show. But summer education is

definitely going to run at VIA

University College again next year.

And again a lot of students are going

to spend two weeks of their holidays

in Horsens, Denmark.

Wolto